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All Rise...

Appellate Judge James A. Stewart wouldn't join a young Communist group. He's glad to know that makes him a rebel.

The Charge

"Where you won't find us, you'll find our enemies."

Opening Statement

That's a quote from an East German policeman in Berlin-Schönhauser
Corner (Berlin-Ecke Schönhauser). In 1957, when the movie was
made, East Berliners could still travel across the border to see movies. Films
like Blackboard Jungle "had caused a number of riots in West German
cities," the text essay on the movie says, and East Berliners were tasting
the freedom youth movies hinted at.

How do you reach teens who want this freedom stuff and turn their fancies to
Socialism? With movies from DEFA, the East German film arm, of course. The
filmmaker here was Gerhard Klein, who directed the "Berlin films,"
which captured the "poetry of daily life." He and screenwriter
Wolfgang Kolhaase created a movie which shows that the freedoms of the West that
young people craved weren't all they were cracked up to be.

It didn't convince me that all those East German police officers around
every corner were really wonderful people. Still, Berlin-Schönhauser
Corner might be nostalgic for East Germans of a certain age. It's the latest
in the DEFA Film Library series from the University of Massachusetts at
Amherst.

Facts of the Case

"You're a good worker, a good man, but evenings you play tough," a
co-worker tells Dieter (Ekkehard Schall, In
The Dust of the Stars). The co-worker's recruiting for a young Communist
group, but Dieter will have none of it. He'd prefer to hang out on the
Schonhauser corner with his buds, even when he has to deal with the occasional
trip to the police station because someone broke a streetlight.

He's been getting out of trouble so far, with the help of a brother in the
police force, but luck's running out for him and Kohle when a friend gets
involved with a fake ID operation. A confrontation with the friend sends Dieter
and Kohle on the run—to the West.

The Evidence

Where should I begin? Maybe at the beginning, since the music over the
credits is almost a waltz. Wouldn't rock 'n' roll be more appropriate for a
movie about young people in trouble, even in East Germany? The music jazzes up a
little bit as the movie goes on, but could never be called rockin'.

It's also hard to believe these young people as layabouts when they're so
polite and the boys wear jackets and ties. It seems that Dieter's only real
crime, until he's actually threatened with a gun and defends himself, is not
joining a Communist group. As I watched, I rooted for him to keep defying
authority, not to buckle under and become a good Communist. I'd like to think
any young East Germans who saw this back in 1957 felt the same way.

Among the movie's assertions are that defection is the last refuge of
criminals, that the reason East Germans who defect don't come back is that the
West Germans don't let them, and that gangs of bullies await the East Germans
who go over. In the scenes that depict the sins of the parents to show why their
kids turned out badly, a wistful longing to cross the border is equated with
adultery and beating up your kid.

There's lots of unintended comedy, but I can't fault the direction—the
movie captures East Berlin every bit as beautifully as The Naked City captured 1940s New York
City—or the acting. The shadows that run through the movie have a noirish
feel. Even if he's not really allowed to be tough, Ekkehard Schall, the
son-in-law of Bertolt Brecht, shows promise as an actor and screen presence. The
movie also gave Ilse Pagé, a popular West German actress, a career start in
the role of Dieter's girlfriend Angela. It may be propaganda, but it's done
well.

One of the extras really baffled me. While the 38-minute short,
"Kohlhaase on Klein," undoubtedly had a lot of insight into the work
of Gerhard Klein, what it did not have was subtitles. If you can speak German,
it might be worthwhile, though. An essay on the film and biographies of the
director, screenwriter, and leads, being in English, were useful.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

While Berlin-Schönhauser Corner may seem campy today, it also has
a lot of images of East Berlin life, from the tiny apartments to the
construction site where the workers find an unexploded bomb.

Perhaps the East Germans wanted to leak this film to the West, to convince
the authorities and others that anyone who wanted to defect was a layabout or
criminal.

The weirdest thing is that, even though it toes the party line,
Berlin-Schönhauser Corner was still banned eventually.

Closing Statement

This can be taken as both an excellent example of filmmaking and a piece of
unintended camp. It's not for most casual viewers, but I'm glad it's around. For
anyone studying the Cold War era, Berlin-Schönhauser Corner and
other DEFA releases are valuable resources, both as examples of propaganda and
as records of everyday life in East Germany.

The Verdict

Not guilty. The defendant is free to go—even to defect to West
Berlin.